Edit. by Cooke. Fc. 3s cl.; 3 eral History;

ncient & Mod. Geog. 24m

s Text, with a litera y T.W.C. Edwards, M.A. Im us Assistant;

ith copious Notes 3rd edit. e Tutor's Assistant. oth.

of Mental Arithmet 1 edition, 12mo. 3s. 6d. cloth ckest Method of aco ronunciation. 2nd Edition, 12 istant;

tory, Literature, and Scie 12mo. 5s. roan lettered.

hair, all but two tresses, drawn up in a silk net, with a few olive leaves twisted a little fantastically on one side-she was beautiful; and if ever I felt the full force of an honest heart-ache, it was the moment I saw her

God help her! poor damsel! above a hundred masses, said the postilion, have been said in the several parish churches and convents around for her-but without effect: we have still hopes, as she is sensible for short intervals, that the Virgin at last will restore her to herself; but her parents, who know her best, are hopeless upon that score, and think her senses are lost for ever.

As the postilion spoke this, Maria made a cadence so melancholy, so tender, and querulous, that I sprung out of the chaise to help her, and found myself sitting between her and her goat, before I relapsed from my enthusiasm.

Maria looked wistfully for some time at me, and then at her goat-and then at me--and then at her goat again, and so on alternately-

-Well, Maria, said I softly-What resemblance do

you find?

I do intreat the candid reader to believe me, that it was from the humblest conviction of what a beast man is,-that I asked the question; and that I would not have let fall an unseasonable pleasantry in the venerable presence of Misery, to be entitled to all the wit that ever Rabelais scattered.

Adieu, Maria!—adieu, poor hapless damsel !—some time, but not now, I may hear thy sorrows from thy own lips-but I was deceived; for that moment she took her pipe, and told me such a tale of woe with it, that I rose up, and with broken and irregular steps, walked softly to my chaise.

Second Part.

WHEN We had got within half a league of Moulines, at a little opening in the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria sitting under a poplar-she was sitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning on one side within her hand-a small brook ran at the foot of the tree.

I bade the postilion go on with the chaise to Moulines

-and La Fleur to bespeak my supper-and that I would walk after him.

She was dressed in white, and much as my friend described her, except that her hair hung loose, which before was twisted within a silk net. She had superadded likewise to her jacket a pale green riband, which fell across her shoulder to the waist; at the end of which hung her pipe. Her goat had been as faithless as her lover; and she had got a little dog in lieu of him, which she kept tied by a string to her girdle; as I looked at her dog, she drew him towards her with the string-" Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvio," said she. I looked in Maria's eyes, and saw she was thinking more of her father than of her lover or her little goat; for as she uttered the words, the tears trickled down her cheeks.

I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away as they fell, with my handkerchief. I then steeped it in my own and then in hers-and then in mine-and then I wiped hers again—and as I did it, I felt such undescribable emotions within me, as I am sure could not be accounted for from any combinations of matter and motion.

I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pestered the world, ever convince me of the contrary.

When Maria had come a little to herself, I asked her if she remembered a pale thin person of a man, who had sat down betwixt her and her goat about two years before? She said, she was unsettled much at that time, but remembered it upon two accounts-that ill as she was, she saw the person pitied her; and next, that her goat had stolen his handkerchief, and she had beaten him for the theft-she had washed it, she said, in the brook, and kept it ever since in her pocket, to restore it to him in case she should ever see him again, which, she added, he had half promised her. As she told me this, she took the handkerchief out of her pocket to let me see it she had folded it up neatly in a couple of vine-leaves, tied round with a tendril-on opening it, I saw an S marked in one of the

corners.

:

She had since that, she told me, strayed as far as Rome, and walked round St. Peter's once-and returned back

that she found her way alone across the Apennines-had travelled over all Lombardy without money-and through the flinty roads of Savoy without shoes: how she had borne it, and how she had got supported, she could not tell—but God tempers the wind, said Maria, to the shorn lamb.

Shorn indeed! and to the quick, said I; and wast thou in my own land, where I have a cottage, I would take thee to it, and shelter thee; thou shouldst eat of my own bread and drink of my own cup-I would be kind to thy Sylvio-in all thy weaknesses and wanderings I would seek after thee and bring thee back-when the sun went down I would say my prayers, and when I had done, thou shouldst play the evening song upon thy pipe; nor would the incense of my sacrifice be worse accepted, for entering Heaven along with that of a broken heart.

Nature melted within me as I uttered this; and Maria observing, as I took out my handkerchief, that it was steeped too much already to be of use, would needs go wash it in the stream-And where will you dry it, Maria? said I-I will dry it in my bosom, said she—it will do me good.

And is your heart still so warm, Maria? said I.

I touched upon the string on which hung all her sorrows -she looked with wistful disorder for some time in my face; and then, without saying any thing, took her pipe, and played her service to the Virgin-The string I had touched ceased to vibrate-in a moment or two Maria returned to herself-let her pipe fall-and rose up.

And where are you going, Maria? said I.-She said, to Moulines-Let us go, said I, together. Maria put her arm within mine, and lengthening the string to let the dog follow-in that order we entered Moulines.

Though I hate salutations and greetings in the marketplace, yet when we got into the middle of this I stopped to take my last look and last farewell of Maria.

Maria, though not tall, was nevertheless of the first order of fine forms-affliction had touched her looks with something that was scarce earthly-still she was feminine-and so much was there about her of all that the heart wishes, or the eyes look for in woman, that could the traces be ever worn out of her brain, and those of Eliza's